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Just in time for me to release my new "lemonade stand app" it tells you if you are approaching a lemonade stand, and to slow down just in case you are thirsty, or take a different route if you don't like lemonade at all.

So what was the probable cause to talk to you in the first place? If a police officer is talking to you it means he's looking for evidence which means you are a suspect. DUI stops and in particular checkpoints provide the person stopped with none of the same rights as any other typical case. For example, I would never speak to the police without a lawyer. If I assert that right after being stopped for DUI suspicion I would immediately lose my license - guilty until proven innocent.

Bullshit. I have been subjected to one of these DUI checkpoints. The police stop every nth car whether or not alcohol is smelled or suspected. I happened to be the lucky number n car. They required me to remove my glasses and submit to a field sobriety test. In Ohio, there is no publication of checkpoints, so in order to get around the 4th amendment, they test "randomly". i.e. every nth car. That is, unless they happen to smell or see alcohol. Then you are busted anyway.

Or maybe there are sober people who don't want to be stopped at a DUI checkpoint.

I've yet to experience a DUI checkpoint, but I've seen seatbelt check-points that resulted in epically bad traffic jams. I'd want to know if there was one if only to make it to work before lunch (which admittedly doesn't apply to DUI since they probably aren't setup at 8 am).

That sucks, but as a condition of you using the public roads, you agree to be subject to DUI screens.

If the government can simply require me to waive my fundamental rights as a condition to doing quite ordinary activities, those rights have gotten pretty darned watered down. Want to drive, take an airplane, take the subway, train, or interstate bus? No Fourth Amendment for your person. Hmm, but most of us use public water and/or sewer... maybe as a condition to that, we'll give up protection against sear

That sucks, but as a condition of you using the public roads, you agree to be subject to DUI screens.

So you're okay with a condition of using public sidewalks that you can be stopped and cavity searched at any time?

The dissenting opinion of the supreme court case said it best:

Moved by whatever momentary evil has aroused their fears, officials — perhaps even supported by a majority of citizens — may he tempted to conduct searches that sacrifice the liberty of each citizen to assuage the perceived evil. But the Fourth Amendment rests on the principle that a title balance between the individual and society depends on the recognition of “the right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. [Cite omitted.]'' [496 U.S. at 458-459.)

I'm sure you are aware of this but thought it needed repeating. The apps being rejected are only those that do not make use of publicly available information regarding DUI checkpoints. Just wanted to point that out. You didn't specifically say mention this policy one way or another so I thought I would. Just wanted to make sure folks who are too lazy to RTFA knew this as well.

From TFA:

Apps which contain DUI checkpoints that are not published by law enforcement agencies, or encourage and enable drunk driving

Checkpoint Apps that rely on publicly available police department released data are just fine. Crowdsourced (etc) apps are not.

Why is that?

Whether it's immoral or not to provide a method for drunk drivers and normal drivers alike to avoid DUI checkpoints is another question.

Morality has nothing to do with it; for these checkpoints to have passed Constitutional muster, it's required that the public be informed as to their location. So again, why does it matter how the public gets this information? It's not like most checkpoints are disclosed except for a few here and there that those wacky pranksters with their smart phones are spoiling the surprise!!!!!111lol

Personally, I wholeheartedly support DUI checkpoints and would approve of greater punishments for dangerous and erratic drivers.

Personally, I despise any and all fishing expeditions performed by the police and I'm grateful that these

block apps which have no purpose other than letting people drink-drive.

I don't drink & drive, and I also don't enjoy waiting in a long line of cars going through a DUI checkpoint.Like all technology, there can be legal and illegal uses, or in this case, moral and immoral uses. Information about DUI checkpoints is required to be public.

I'm sorry for their loss, and I fully support MUCH tougher penalties for drunk driving (or other crimes, like hitting cyclists). From the article you linked to, it sounds like your friends would be alive today if there was proper punishment for DUIs:

Records show Fred Russell has had other legal problems, including two charge

But, you have to remember that rights are more important than a single life. I don't want another terrorist attack, so should I agree to fly naked and have a cavity search before boarding a flight?

There is also the question of effectiveness of check points. If it takes 20 officers to run a check point and they catch 1-2 people who might not even be impaired but simply blew over the magical.05 or.08 limit is that really the best use of 20 officers time? Could it be better to have them patrolling and looking for people who are you know...impaired?

That these checkpoints are called "DUI checkpoints" in no way suggests that:1) Government checkpoints are authorized by the Constitution2) There is no reason for non-drunks to avoid them3) That banning products in high demand will do anything but create a black market for them.

If you're not a fan of censorship generally, I'd expect you to be a little more skeptical and analytical, a little less "I don't care if the authorities grope everybody's underpants because I've got nothing to hide".

... is merely to ban apps that contain checkpoint information that is not publicly available. A Checkpoint app that uses data from public police information is still acceptable, and nearly every police department in the nation not only publishes their checkpoint dates and locations, but ADVERTISES THEM on TV and the local news.

Everybody wants so much drama where there actually isn't any. It's annoying.

there used to be a custom on the road: when you saw a speed trap, you blinked your lights to the oncoming traffic to warn them. this, in many states, can you get cited;(

Question: where speeding is (in most cases) not criminal, and the purported goal of speed traps is for safety, not revenue collection, drivers flashing their headlamps achieves the oft-stated goal: getting drivers to slow down. Why should they care if people slow down a couple thousand feet before the speed trap? You would think that if the real purpose of speed traps is to increase safety (study after study after study have consistently demonstrated that speeding in and of itself is not dangerous) then they would encourage ANY means to get drivers to slow down. Calling it obstruction of justice is idiotic because it shows that all they care about is revenue.

People on the road today are idiots - especially here in Massachusetts (there is a reason the word Masshole exists): yield signs mean "cut the other person off," stop signs mean "proceed without stopping or slowing and without checking for traffic," red lights mean "Punch it! You have a three-second grace period" and someone turning on their turn indicators (blinkers in New England nomenclature) is an indication that you are to speed up and not let the person change lanes so that they can't get to their exit. Also, we have our highways backwards: often the leftmost lane is the "drive 55mph in the 60mph|65mph zone and read a book", the middle lane is the one that you never travel in but the one where you cut off everyone who thinks it's the travel lane, and the right lane is the passing lane - and if the right lane is taken, then the breakdown lane becomes the passing lane.

On top of that people have no sense of custom: I've had one batshit insane bitch cuss me out - she signaled to change lanes in front of me, so I quickly flashed my highs twice; this historically means "go ahead you're clear." She didn't change lanes but slowed down. Whatever. So a little further she puts her turn indicator on again so again I flashed my highs and WAVED signaling "go ahead." She didn't change lanes. Well the road narrowed so she pulled behind me, and then coming up to a traffic light she pulls up next to me and starts cussing me out. I told her that I was signaling for her to go ahead and change lanes, and even slowed down to give her more room, and she didn't take it. She continued to cuss me out. I just called her a moron and continued on my way when the light turned green. There are customs on the road - flashing your lights to signal to someone (truckers ESPECIALLY follow this - or used to) to go ahead and pull in front of you; the flashing indicates "you're clear" and when you move over, you signal "thanks" by flashing rear fogs or brake lights (many truck drivers do that to this day, but many do not any more) once you're in your lane. Flashing your highs at oncoming traffic in daylight means "speed trap ahead" - and flashing when you are behind someone in the passing lane (in MA, the slow-down-to-5-10mph-under-the-limit-and-read-a-book-or-eat-your-sub-or-watch-a-DVD-lane) means "please move over I'd like to pass."

When I travel outside of New England, it's refreshing to see that many people recognize and follow rights of way, light signal customs, and all of that.

Anyway, back to the topic: if people signaling gets people to travel "more safely" (ignoring studies on "speeding" - I'm talking about the propaganda about why there are artificially low speed limits and the according speed traps) then why should police departments complain about people slowing down? It just proves that it's about revenue and power, not safety at all.

50 MPH zone transitioning into a short 35 MPH zone on a straight and level consistently wide road, is for no reason other than to allow the creation of a speed trap so that the town where that 35 MPH zone resides can stick it to people.
Yes, I flash my high beams.

Until fairly recently, a town near mine [wikipedia.org] had 45 to 35 drop on a wide, open, straight road. Worse, they knowingly placed the 35MPH sign such that it was partially obstructed by a tree. There was one judge in the small town that decided early on this was no excuse. For years, the town of 60 residents had 14 police officers whose only job was to sit next to the 35MPH sign on either side of town and reel in speeders.

Eventually, the state put a stop to this and dissolved the town. But it was like that for near

That's a common misconception about what entrapment really is. In order for that to be entrapment, you'd have to have a uniformed officer telling you to speed. There are three conditions for entrapment to be considered.

Entrapment holds if all three conditions are fulfilled:

1. The idea for committing the crime came from the government agents and not from the person accused of the crime.
2. Government agents then persuaded or talked the person into committing the crime. Simply giving someone the o

Eh, 35 on the open parts of New York Avenue is pretty weak... also, leaving work-zone speed restrictions up when the work has been finished for weeks... and $125 is the minimum fine... yeah, people speed, but I don't wish tickets on most of them.

You mean seeing that there is a check being done somewhere somehow means that it isn't "publicly available"? Where else would this app get its info if it wasn't from public records, or people reporting checks in? Both of which should be legal.

Numerous SCOTUS rulings indicate the Constitution can be safely ignored by the Government. Worse thing that happens is SCOTUS says Congress needs to make the infringing activity legal, which they promptly do.

But it doesn't say where they have to advertise it. For all we know, it could be on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard', and they would still be in compliance of the law.

As far as I can tell, the Senators decided to write Apple precisely because there was nothing illegal about those apps. Reporting on police activity isn't illegal - yet, I guess. I'm not entirely surprised that those apps specifically were banned from the app store, because Apple has an interest in keeping legislators off its back and keep up the image of offering a wholesome version of the Internet. At the same time, I'm curious what other apps would fall under this, or if Apple is going to keep this little bit of TOS around only to remove apps that generate too much bad publicity. My guess is it's going to be the latter.

This seems a "wag the dog" or some sort of odd complaint that came up.
Every time checkpoints went up, police told the media, who told the public.
Why this is a big deal, I dont know.
I do know that drunk driving IS a huge problem and these checkpoints do save a lot of lives.
I also know that punishment for DUIs are pretty lax, so if they want to stop them, make it tougher.

I do know that drunk driving IS a huge problem and these checkpoints do save a lot of lives.

Citation?

I agree drunk driving is a bad thing. But frankly, I've never seen any real evidence it's as endemic as you suggest. I've been driving for almost 40 years, and I can only recall seeing ONE (1) guy who was almost certainly drunk while driving (he was going east on the westbound half of a divided highway in the middle of the night).

It's virtually certain that there were other drivers who'd had a drink or three near me on the road in that time, but none that were obvious enough to pick out from the usual fraction of sucky drivers you find everywhere.

I also agree; been driving 30+ years and this 'drunk driving problem' is not any kind of major problem that I've seen.

so much is overblown because its a popular way to raise more power for those in charge and to look like you're tough on 'crime'.

a checkpoint to catch a percent of a percent? isn't that a baby and bathwater situation? sure sounds like one to me. lets suspect everyone who crosses this 'checkpoint' and have them be assumed guilty unless they prove TO US that they're not.

Nice, so if you get hit by a drunk driver, will you then blame the "gubbernment" for not doing its job, thus being overpaid and lazy?

The actual reason Drunk driving is a problem is the random deaths on the roads caused by people driving drunk.
If you live out in the boonies and dont see many cars, then of course you wont notice any.
What you should do is go to a bar, wait till closing and follow a few cars home.

Live in the city? You should have notcied some by now, but if you havent. Drive around betwee

that's the thing about driving, it takes TWO people to mess up usually. It's a stable system, which is what I finally understood to be the reason we're not all dead. It's pretty damned amazing isn't it? That we get into these things and impart so many newtons of force all bent on a person with, most likely, only a finger on the device that could with an idle flick cause all that energy to release at once, always only a few seconds away.

Well, that is your anecdote. My anecdote is that I personally know three people who have been killed by drunk drivers. And I know from watching the news and reading the paper that in my relatively small metro area, a drunk person kills someone almost every single day. Alcohol was a factor in 37% of fatalities in my state, and my state is only slightly above the average. So, by ending drunk driving we could save 15,000 lives a year in the U.S. That seems like a significant issue.

Automotive analogy: The problem with using BAC is that it's akin to checking the speed of your car by putting strain gages in the tires and measuring the radial strain to get at the rotational speed. It's just as silly.

What you need to do is a functional test: measure reflex speeds, vestibular nystagmus and its suppression, and such. All of that could be done with a portable eye tracker, quite cheaply, too (read: big profits for manufacturer). This would take care of people's varying sensitivity to alcohol, and would automatically catch drug users, too. It tests the performance of the visual system -- kinda important when you're driving.

BAC is an indirect way to measure impairment: it's impairment you're after, not BAC itself. BAC is a very approximate estimate for impairment! Even worse, BAC is measured indirectly again by poorly testing the amount of alcohol in exhaled air. That's two layers of indirection for measuring something that has direct, reproducible measurements available.

the dangers of drunk driving have nothing to do with how your eye vibrates or your nystagmus suppresses or whatever.

There isn't some magic booze fairy that comes down and jerks the wheel. These are well-understood biological processes. You said it yourself above, "The danger is with people who are drunk enough to mess with their distance judgment or reflexes." So which is it? Biology or booze fairy?

At least BAC is a proxy that can be understood and everybody agrees is related to alcohol intake.

So what? It's also an arbitrary measurement that can mean wildly different things depending on any number of factors. If I usually have a six pack a day, and today I drank three beers, I'm probably over the limit, but in no way impaired. You obviously know that. So why are you spreading lies?

the dangers of drunk driving have nothing to do with how your eye vibrates or your nystagmus suppresses or whatever

Sez you. Nystagmus is directly related to the efficacy of the alcohol that is affecting the brain. If you know the alcohol is affecting the eyes a certain amount, you know that it is also affecting motor centers the same amount. It is a proxy, but a very close proxy.

At least BAC is a proxy that can be understood and everybody agrees is related to alcohol intake.

Lets put the check on route #1. Ok now start the application that reports check points on routes #2, #3, #4. Suddenly you have lots of people that are directed into the actual check point. Especially people that were actually looking to avoid the check point and are the actual ones you want to check.

Any politician caught up in such a thing would have a terrible campaign next time around however as people suggest that they intentionally LIED to the population to force them into a certain area. Even outside of the obvious deceitfulness there, it also could have implications for negatively affecting the traffic.

Probably not illegal, but such a thing could quickly turn into a PR nightmare.

They do something like this in Florida.They put a sign up on one of the interstates saying "Drug Checkpoint Ahead".There is no checkpoint, and if there was one, it would probably be unconstitutional.But they don't need one.They just pull over everyone who suddenly pulls a U-turn across the median(which is a genuine traffic violation).

I run a store. I don't want to sell beans in my store. I remove all beans from my store. I also exercise my proprietary lock down on your mouth and digestive system to prevent you from eating beans from anyone else. You can try to remove my bean-locking, but it might kill you, and I will be unhappy if you succeed. I did try to push legislation to stop that, but it didn't go my way. Oh, and I will periodically push out an update to you that mi

What do you mean no competition. Android is totally killing iOS in sales. Aren't they? Aren't they? So your metaphor is totally wrong. It's more like this.
I run a small and successful store. Megamart opened up next door, and they sell everything I do and more. They franchise their brand to anyone who meets their terms (for free!), and although the franchisees aren't always the most agreeable to this, they pretty much allow any vendor to put their stuff on the shelves. Sometimes the quality is not g

Sure they did. Anybody can write a letter, but Apple can choose to comply with their request or ignore it. In this case, they did what they were asked to do. A handful of senators could also write a letter asking Apple to buy air time during the Superbowl filled with footage of his holiness Steve Jobs doing the electric slide. There's nothing wrong with them sending that letter, but Apple would likely blow them off.

The new ToS are about removing apps that use information that was not publicly available already. The data published by the police is still fine to use. Of course, the troll summary leaves that out to try to paint Apple in as poor a light as possible, but this is slashdot.

The new ToS are about removing apps that use information that was not publicly available already. The data published by the police is still fine to use. Of course, the troll summary leaves that out to try to paint Apple in as poor a light as possible, but this is slashdot.

So just to be clear, since it appears ALL checkpoints [wikipedia.org] have to be published publicly, therefore NO apps are to be banned?

That's kind of a funny insight -- certain legislators being cranked that public information has unexpectedly gotten into a readable, useful format. Implying that newspapers have degenerated to the status of "officially public information" but "assuming no one actually reads them".

Hey brainiac, I know reading the fucking article is so last-year around here, but if you had bothered to read it, you would have seen this:

In revised app store guidelines discovered by Mac Rumors, Apple has updated Section 22.8 to now read:Apps which contain DUI checkpoints that are not published by law enforcement agencies, or encourage and enable drunk driving, will be rejected.

This submission is retardedly inaccurate flamebait. If your app contains information about checkpoints that have been published

There is absolutely nothing illegal about those apps. Senators stating they are illegal is an outright lie and violation of the 1st amendment. DUI checkpoints are in fact public knowledge because the public must be informed the checkpoints are in place, because they can prevent people from getting places on time. The general public is usually informed by putting in a newspaper. Because it is public knowledge, the apps are a extension of freedom of speech. It would be the same as an application that allows y

How about an app that you enter the name of a politician and you can enter details of something they have done that you heard about or check what others have reported about your favorite/hated officials. Info like where they are available in the public or where they are making public speeches just in-case you want to communicate with them or throw a sign at them.

How are they technically illegal? IANAL, but I was under the impression that a cop could stop you for any reason they like while on a public roadway. They can't ask you to get out of the car and frisk you, or search your car (without probable cause), but I see no reason why they can't stop you and check your license, registration, and/or sobriety.

They do it to truckers all the time with weigh stations, how are cars any different?